Enjoy Looking and Feeling Amazing in Melbourne Melton VIC

Sunshine

Sunshine town centre

Sunshine is a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, lying 11 to 13 km west of the CBD, located within the City of Brimbank local government area. Sunshine, initially a town just outside Melbourne, is today a residential suburb with a mix of period and post-War homes, with a town centre that is an important retail centre in Melbourne’s west. It is also one of Melbourne’s principal places of employment outside the CBD with many industrial companies situated in the area, and is an important public transport hub with both V/Line and Metro services at Sunshine station and a major bus interchange.

Sunshine is a highly multicultural suburb. In the post-WWII period, many immigrants from all over continental Europe settled in Sunshine. Today Sunshine still has significant populations from Italy, Greece, former Yugoslavia, and Poland. It is also the main centre for Melbourne’s Maltese community: indeed, the only branch of Malta’s Bank of Valletta in the whole of Oceania is situated on Watt St, Sunshine. The heritage-listed H.V. McKay Memorial Gardens on Anderson Road, established in 1909 by H.V. McKay as Sunshine Gardens, is one of two remaining industrial gardens in Australia.

St Albans

A vibrant library in the city

St Albans is a suburb 15 km (9 mi) north-west of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located within the City of Brimbank local government area. St Albans’ main commercial and shopping precinct is located on Main Road West, Main Road East, Alfrieda Street, the railway station and East Esplanade. It has become a very multicultural area with 53.5% of residents being born overseas and has a high proportion of non-English speaking background residents.

St Albans’ ethnic makeup is predominantly second and third generation immigrants. The ABS 2001 Census reported that 43% were of Southern or Eastern European origin, with 10% of Maltese extraction alone and about 20% from the Balkan region, including Albanians, Bosnians, Croatians, Macedonians and Serbs. Significant communities from Vietnam and the Philippines were also reported. St Albans has three train stations, all in PTV ticketing Zone 2 on the Sunbury line. These are Ginifer, St Albans and Keilor Plains. Great parks are located on the East and West borders of the suburb. These areas (particularly in the West) used to have large healthy populations of native reptiles, including Tiger snake, Eastern Blue-tongued Lizard and Eastern brown snake. Unfortunately due to development these species are now rarely seen in the area.

Hillside

Hillside Football Club

Hillside is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 23 km north-west of Melbourne’s Central Business District, located within the Cities of Brimbank and Melton local government areas. There is another Hillside in Victoria, a small rural district near Bairnsdale. The suburb was created only recently and is still a developing area. It has estates with names of Cypress Rise, Banchory Grove, Parkwood Green, Bellevue Hill, Sugargum Estate, Hillside 2000 and Regency Rise. A large water tower (known as “The Golf Ball” by locals) exists in the estate of The Bellevue, which can be seen from several kilometres around and, along with the large radio transmission towers in nearby Delahey, is a major landmark of the outer north-western suburban area.

The streets of Hillside are lined with plane trees, which were planted during the farming days of Hillside. The terrain has a slight slope going up the main street. Sydenham Hillside Football Club, an Australian rules football team, competes in the Essendon District Football League.

Sydenham

Catholic Regional College

Sydenham is a suburb 25 km north-west of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located within the City of Brimbank local government area. The Post Office opened on 26 August 1861. A railway station, known as Keilor Road, was opened in 1859 and renamed Sydenham on 1 April 1887.Jock Mac Rob and Graham Homes were to of the early Station Masters ROB. The station was relocated before reopening as Watergardens in 2002, with the extension of the electric rail service to the suburb. Watergardens is on the Sunbury railway line and was a terminus station until November 2012. There is a church behind the Watergardens railway station.

Education facilities in the area include Catholic Regional College Sydenham, a coeducational Catholic senior high school and shares some of its grounds with Emmaus Catholic Primary School. It also includes the Sydenham-Hillside Primary School, which is one of the country’s largest government primary school and the Sydenham Campus of Copperfield College. Hillside Football Club, an Australian Rules football team, competes in the Essendon District Football League. Sydenham Park Soccer Club competes in the north west state. Calder Park Raceway is located just to the north of Sydenham.

Caroline Springs

creek on western plain

Caroline Springs is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 25 km west of Melbourne’s Central Business District, located within the City of Melton local government area. Caroline Springs has been developed on greenfield land since 1999 by Delfin, in partnership with the original landowners. Centrally located, just north of Kororoit Creek, is the town square and main shopping centre, known as CS Square, and a man-made lake known as Lake Caroline. At the time of development, it was one of Melbourne’s fastest growing suburbs and Delfin anticipated the population to be in excess of 25,000 people by 2015.

Kororoit Creek runs through the centre of the suburb. The creek has been home to healthy populations of native animals for thousands of years, including the Tiger snake, the Eastern Blue-tongued Lizard, the Common snakeneck turtle, the Eastern brown snake and Kangaroos. Unfortunately due to development over the past 15 years, these species are now rarely seen in the area. The suburb’s main form of transport is the car and is a largely car-dependent community. It was planned under the concepts of street hierarchy and has just one main arterial, Caroline Springs Boulevard, which feeds into both the Deer Park Bypass and the Western Highway in the south and connects to Melbourne via either the Western Ring Road or the Princes Highway.

Melton

Djerriwarrh Festival parade

Melton is an urban area within metropolitan Melbourne, Australia located 35 km west from the capital’s central business district. It is the administrative centre of the City of Melton local government area and its most populous centre. At June 2016 Melton had an estimated urban population of 62,117. It is considered part of the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area and is included in the capital’s population statistical division. Melton began as a small town before being declared a satellite city in 1974, separated from Melbourne’s urban area by a green wedge. Since the 1990s it has experienced rapid suburban growth into surrounding greenfield land and has become a commuter town in the Melbourne-Ballarat growth corridor. Changes to Melbourne’s urban growth boundary passed by the state government in 2010 effectively relinquish its satellite city status as it is planned to become part of Melbourne’s future conurbation.
It is named after Melton Mowbray in the United Kingdom.

Melton is located on flat, largely featureless, former volcanic plains. To the south-east of Melton Township is Mount Cottrell, a blast-shield volcano, and to the north-east of the township is Mount Kororoit. These two volcanoes are some of the easternmost volcanoes on the Victorian Volcanic Plain which extends to the South Australian border. Melton is the home of the harness racing complex Tabcorp Park, and is the base for Harness Racing Victoria. The 2009 Australasian Breeders Crown was the first major race meeting held at the venue in August 2009.

Casey

Indoor Sports House

The City of Casey is one of Australia’s fastest growing regions. Casey is the third fastest growing municipality in Victoria, behind Wyndham and Whittlesea and the eighth fastest growing municipality in Australia. Casey spreads from the base of the Dandenong Ranges in the north to the shoreline of Western Port in the south. It features a wide variety of geographical features, due to its outer metropolitan location. The north, in the foothills of the Dandenongs, is primarily made up of large blocks of land used for grazing, with some small vineyards in operation. An Urban Growth Boundary has been in place since 2005 to protect this area from future residential subdivision. South of Cranbourne is mainly farmland, used for market gardening and grazing. A small number of flower farms exist around Junction Village, along with a large chicken processing plant in Clyde. This green area has now been opened up for housing development, in the areas of Cranbourne East, Clyde and Clyde North.

The Casey Demons (formerly Scorpions), an Australian rules football club represent Casey in the Victorian Football League. Their home ground is at the Casey Fields Complex in Cranbourne. The team was founded in around 1903 in Springvale. The Casey-South Melbourne Cricket Club also have their home ground at Casey Fields. The Melbourne Football Club has developed a partnership with the City of Casey, with training sessions and other events held at Casey Fields.

Narre Warren

Second largest shopping centre in Australia

Narre Warren is a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, 38 km southeast of Melbourne’s central business district in the local government area of the City of Casey. At the 2016 Census, Narre Warren had a population of 26,621.[1] Narre Warren has a population density of over 2000 people per square kilometre. Narre Warren has its own railway station, located on Webb Street, and is home to Australia’s second largest shopping centre (by Gross Leasable Area), Westfield Fountain Gate, after Chadstone Shopping Centre. The biggest secondary school in Narre Warren is Fountain Gate Secondary College.

Over the years Narre Warren has grown from a semi-rural residential town to become a part of a major growth corridor in the southeast of Melbourne.In recent years a multitude of new housing developments have seen Narre Warren expand to such an extent that it now adjoins neighbouring suburbs such as Berwick. Westfield Fountain Gate (named after one of the earlier subdivisions) is at the heart of the main commercial precinct in Narre Warren. It is one of the largest shopping centres in Australia, housing many of Australia’s major retailers. The centre has been made famous by the popular Australian television show Kath & Kim, parts of which were also filmed at Westfield Southland. There is also a local shopping strip around the railway station in Webb Street.

Hampton Park

Tennis Clubs in Hampton

Hampton Park is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 36 km south-east of Melbourne’s central business district. Its local government area is the City of Casey. Hampton Park is bounded by the South Gippsland Freeway in the west, Centre Road in the north, a line generally parallel to Langbourne Drive in the east, and Glasscocks Road in the south. The original development of Hampton Park dates from the post World War I era, when the area around Somerville Road was subdivided, with the Post Office opening on 22 November 1920. Electricity was connected in Hampton Park in 1942 and town water in 1961. Until these services were connected the people relied on lamps and tank water for their light and water needs.

Significant development of the area commenced in the 1970s, with development continuing through to the present. Development in the neighbouring Lynbrook estate commenced in 1994. The Hampton Park and Lynbrook areas have significant areas of land remaining for development. Hampton Park, Lynbrook and Lyndhurst form a growing residential area that has experienced a significant increase in population from 1996 to 2001. This increase in population has occurred due to an increase in the dwelling stock from 1996 to 2001.

Hampton Park has its own library, community hall, high school called Hampton Park Secondary College, and several primary schools. There is a local supermarket complex called Hampton Park Central (previously Hampton Park Shopping Square), and it is close to the much larger Westfield Fountain Gate in Narre Warren. Hampton Park has a number primary schools and one secondary college located in the community of Hampton Park and catering to its growing primary and secondary educational requirements.

Cranbourne

Royal Botanical Gardens

Cranbourne is a large suburb located in Melbourne’s outer south-east between Dandenong and Tooradin. While suburban housing developments characterise the Cranbourne of today, the original town had a long history, having first been settled in 1836. The region has strong agricultural roots, with a large cattle market established in the area soon after settlement, and more recently, Cranbourne was the location of one of Melbourne’s major market gardening industries from the early 1900s. A few of those market gardens still remain, situated south of the city and in the neighbouring communities of Clyde and Devon Meadows. Cranbourne offers a large and modern commercial centre which lines the wide boulevard of High Street (South Gippsland Highway) and includes the Cranbourne Park Shopping Centre.

Cranbourne has had a long history with the horse racing industry, having held its first meeting in 1867. These days, the modern racecourse and adjoining training complex are popular facilities, hosting the Cranbourne Cup and other carnivals. One of the major tourist attraction in town is the 363 hectare Royal Botanical Gardens which include wetlands, woodlands, walking tracks, picnic and BBQ areas. The 11 hectare Australian Garden, located within the grounds of the Botanical Gardens, showcase the diverse plants and landscapes of the country. An unusual attraction within Cranbourne is a meteorite display. Situated within the park on the corner of the South Gippsland Highway and Camms Road (opposite The Settlement Hotel) are full-scale replicas of meteorites that landed in the area in 1860. Cranbourne is ideally situated just a short drive away from the many coastal attractions of the Mornington Peninsula and Western Port, as well as being on the main route from Melbourne to Phillip Island.

Berwick

Akoonah Park Market

Berwick is situated in Melbourne’s outer south-eastern suburbs, between Narre Warren and Beaconsfield. Originally a rich agricultural and pastoral area during the 1800s, Berwick developed into a satellite town of Melbourne, eventually being incorporated as a suburb of the city during the 1990s due to thriving property development in the district. The Berwick of today is a mix of old and new. The commercial centre along High Street and adjacent streets have a 19th-century English village look, with a number of historic buildings, manicured gardens and streets lined with deciduous trees. The Berwick Inn, originally known as the Border Hotel, was built in 1857 and nearby is the Berwick Mechanics Institute & Free Library which moved to its present site in 1880. Berwick’s former post office, with its imposing facade and arches, was built on the corner of High Street and Gloucester Avenue in 1885. Several churches around the town centre date back to the late 1800s.

The grand boulevard of High Street extends eastwards towards Beaconsfield where it is lined with poplar trees and identified as an Avenue of Honour to commemorate those who fought in the First World War. To the north-west and south of the town centre have been rapid suburban housing developments including the local estates of Timbarra, Brentwood and Berwick Springs. Several local shopping centres exist within those areas including Parkhill Plaza and Eden Rise Village. Berwick’s local nightclub, Blitz, is located at Castello’s Berwick Springs Hotel complex. One of Berwick’s primary attractions is the Wilson Botanic Park. This 39 hectare site was originally established as a basalt quarry in 1859 and it operated until 1979. Since then, ongoing redevelopment has seen it evolve into an oasis of gardens, flora and birdlife with several lakes, picnic areas and scenic walking trails with lookouts. In contrast to the suburban sprawl that surrounds much of what was the original Berwick village are the rural areas to the north. A drive along the scenic Beaumont Road winds its way through horse stud farms and homesteads, eventually ascending the surrounding hills and offering spectacular views across the district.

Dandenong

Drum Theatre

Dandenong is situated around 30 kilometres from Melbourne in the city’s south-eastern suburbs. Dandenong was originally a separate city, but it was eventually absorbed into Melbourne’s metropolitan area during urban sprawl of the 1960s. Despite this, Dandenong maintains its own identity and character as a major commercial and industrial area. It has since developed as a highly multicultural city with around half of its residents having been born overseas and representing a diverse range of ethnic groups. Major shopping facilities in Dandenong include the Dandenong Plaza shopping Centre and the vibrant Dandenong Market. An extensive collection of on-street shops front the wide boulevard of Lonsdale Street and within the block bounded by Robinson Street, Foster Street and McCrae Street. In Dandenong North, local shopping facilities are situated in Outlook Drive, Brady Road and Menzies Avenue.

One of the city’s famous landmarks is the Dandenong Town Hall which was built in 1890. Located at the corner of Lonsdale Street and Walker Street, it was redeveloped as the Drum Theatre and became the home of the Dandenong Theatre Company in 2006. Extensive parkland is located within Dandenong. The centrally located Dandenong Park in Pultney Street features the Rotary Club’s water wheel, the Stan Prior Soundshell, a playground, sporting facilities and picnic and BBQ areas. Greaves Reserve in Bennet Street is also known as the Dandenong Showgrounds and is home to a variety of sporting clubs and includes picnic areas and pockets of native bushland. Along Dandenong’s eastern edge are large expanses of parkland which follow Dandenong Creek and feature wetlands, picnic areas, walking and bicycle tracks. Dandenong’s location makes it a handy base for exploring the nearby lush forests of the Dandenong Ranges in the east and the beautiful beaches of the Mornington Peninsula to the south.

Keysborough

Keysborough Tennis Court

Keysborough is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 27 km south-east of Melbourne’s central business district. Its local government area is the City of Greater Dandenong. Keysborough was named after the Keys family who founded the town sometime after 1878. At the 2016 census, Keysborough had a population of 25,785. Keysborough includes market gardens and semi-rural properties and is also a large residential/industrial suburb which started to grow in the 1960s and well into the 1990s. The Post Office opened on 27 November 1973 and was known as Noble Park South until 1978.

Today, Keysborough facilitates several primary and secondary schools, including the Keysborough campus of Haileybury College and Lighthouse Christian College. Parkmore Shopping Centre includes a Coles, Woolworths, Kmart, Big W, Australia Post and an assortment of specialty stores. As of 2002 the southern corner of the suburb was under development and new housing estates have been developed including The Keys, Hidden Grove, and Crystal Waters. In 2017, Elmswood and Somerfield are new housing estates in southern Keysborough currently under development.

There are several parks and shopping centres in the vicinity of Keysborough. The major shopping centre located in Keysborough is Parkmore Shopping Centre, which is operated by GPT (General Property Trust). Approximately six buses run through this shopping centre. Keysborough is serviced by buses operated by Grenda’s Bus Services and Moorabbin Transit. These buses can be hailed from Parkmore Shopping Centre, while the SmartBus has to be hailed from Springvale Road.

Endeavour Hills

Casuarina Forest Reserve

Endeavour Hills is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 31 km (19 mi) south-east from Melbourne’s central business district. Its local government area is the City of Casey. At the 2016 census, Endeavour Hills had a population of 24,294. Endeavour Hills is bordered by the Monash Freeway and Dandenong Creek to the west, Police Road and Churchill Park Drive to the north, Hallam North Road to the east, and Eumemmerring Creek to the south. Endeavour Hills is a hilly and leafy residential suburb with many parks, gardens and a variety of trees and birdlife. It has underground utilities (electricity, gas, telecommunications, water) street lighting, wide roads, footpaths and an abundance of native trees have been planted on naturestrips.

Many houses have been built on steep land blocks and have distant views of the surrounding suburbs, some as far away as Frankston, Chadstone, Pakenham, Port Philip Bay and in some cases the CBD. Endeavour Hills consists of low-density residential housing – single, double and triple level brick houses – built on 1/4, 1/2, 1 or more acre blocks. A meagre of ground-level townhouses and units exist. There are no high-rise buildings and no industries. The main shopping area is Endeavour Hills Shopping Centre, located on the corner of Matthew Flinders Avenue and Heatherton Road. There are 86 retail stores all undercover, including three large supermarkets. The shopping centre consists of a multi-level carpark with over 1800 car park spaces. Around this area is The Endeavour Hills Leisure and Function Centre with a Basketball Court, Health & Wellness Club.

The Endeavour Hills Library (part of the Casey-Cardinia Library Corporation) and the Endeavour Hills Police Station are also within this area. The library has recently been expanded. Endeavour Hills has its own skate park located just outside the Leisure Centre. There are also Tennis Courts at Sydney Parkinson Reserve (Endeavour Hills Tennis Club. 8 clay carpet courts with 4 under lights) and also Tennis Courts on Matthew Flinders Avenue (St.Paul’s), Football/Cricket Oval at James Cook Drive and the suburb boasts an abundance of parks.

Hallam

Hallam Community Centre

Hallam is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 34 km south-east of Melbourne’s central business district. Its local government area is the City of Casey. The suburb has its own railway station. Hallam is bounded by the South Gippsland Freeway in the west, Eumemmerring Creek and Hallam North Road in the north, a drain easement in the east, and Centre Road in the south.

Hallam Community Learning Centre is a not for profit organisation offering a range of learning and social activities to the Hallam and surrounding areas within the City of Casey. The Centre commenced operations in 1986 providing a playgroup for the many young families within the area. Today the Centre continues to offer programs including childcare and children’s activities/programs, Adult Education programs such as, basic computer courses, Non-English Speaking Background language and literacy courses, general programming in health and lifestyle, craft and hobby.